Hi All,

 

I would like to share what I experienced this morning when i was set  for a long drive of 900 km's ( 559.234 miles ) but the trip got ruined because of glow plug symbol mi firing the running engine.

 

A litlle background , it's a rapid 1.6 tdi have done 19000 KM's ( 11806.1 miles ) , first service was done in time at 14k .

 

This morning when i was driving on highway at about 120 km's speed , i had covered 100 km's of my distance , the glow plug symbol flashed on the display and stopped the running engine, immediately hit the hazard lights and pulled over , glow plug continued to flash and i switched off the ignition and pulled the key out , waited 5 minutes and keyed the car again ( it lit this time again as usual and disappeared ) , so i started the car it started perfectly normal with no glow symbol .

 

I continued to drive again as I was on highway i sped again after about 20 KM's it happened again and this time i opened the manual and checked the looked for the symbol , manual didn't suggest much except to call skoda care and that's harmul for engine .

 

I called up the guy even freaked me that it's dangerous symbol that if i continue to drive as i had  800 km's ahead of me , it might not be so good for the car/engine and suggsted to go nearest service center, got highly disappointed  and decided to drive back and this time i maintained lower speed about 80-90 km's and the issue did not happen . 

 

Took the car to service center , the engineer connected his computer to the engine and ran some tests which did say something about 'fault memory' but nothing evident . SKoda apparently upgraded the engine ECU software to latest version and ran some tests again and did not find anything .  We did a test drive of 18 kms and did touch upto 140 km/s this second and everything ran fine .

 

 

What I am  not sure about is that how can a damn symbol halt a running engine as it happened thrice , i have never had this problem before . I am not sure now if i can still go for a long drive . can anyone please enlighten me ?  what are some of the best practices for rapid tdi start and stop , should i get into practice of idling on the first start ? how can I prevent this glow symbol issues again ?

 

thanks in advance,

turbohead

back after 3 hours from my previous post , something new happened this time and the problem of glow plug persists along with DPF continuously flashing this time ..

 

About an hour ago i decided to give it more try and went for a short drive and to my surprise glow plug problem occurred again and this time it happened in 2nd and 3rd **** , symptoms are the same ( symbol flashes , engine stops and i pull over ) been lucky no mishap happened so far and now  I am really nervous. Decided to drive a  bit more further something i new i noticed , the DPF symbol flashed this time along with glow plug on , i had less choice but at least to get home so decided to switch on the engine again and this time DPF consistently stayed on even with batter sign (red) , managed to get home and noticed the DPF comes back on every restart .

 

I am bit frustrated at this time as I dont understand what the heck is going on considering i already showed the car to Skoda and nothing evident was found .

 

Note: i didn't even understand these symbols its only when i open the manual and check and read more on the internet to understand better .

 

PS : I drive very short distances every day ( my office is about 2 km's away from home ) it's only once in 2-3 months that go for long drives , and i understand I should go for 20-30 min consistent drive over 3000 rpm to force dpf regeneration but not sure :(

since the dpf coms back, it means that the fault code is stored on the ecm.

when it flashes, it means that something wrong happens and notifies you this way.

 

best thing you can do, is take it to the dealer, so they scan for codes and let them know under what circumstances you noticed the dpf flash.

 

since under warranty, don't risk driving it.

Stress the point about the DPF warning; it suggests a problem with the engine exhaust. If I'm reading post #1 correctly, the engine "just stopped at highway speed" yes? About the only things that can do that to a diesel are a complete loss of fuelling, an erronious trigger of the engine shut-down, or a blocked exhaust system.

Get rapidly that Rapid to a 'doctor'. will know what's the problem and also come back with feedback. 

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks for your replies, really appreciate and keep them coming please .

 

I thought I'll update the thread although I don't have any good news but yes off course I seek your expert opinion .

 

I had the car picked up by Skoda the very next day I created this thread and it's been more than 2 weeks so far and  Skoda India Giriraj Motors has no Idea of the problem , blame it on SKoda India or the franchise 'Giriraj Motors Gurgaon' incompetency and poor ASS.

 

I have been told so far they have checked wiring harness , swapped sensors , yet not able to find the problem , and the last i heard two days back from service manager was that there seems to be problem with "Engine Timing" , I don't completely understand what that means and how that could happen and what part(s) of Engine are involved and I would really like to know .. The only assurance I get from the service manager is that my car is within the warranty and they will take care of it but my biggest doubt and worry is that if they are really able to find the actual problem and put an appropriate fix .

 

 

I do remember when the issues started and when i reported it first time , I watched the guy who connected VCDS and it clearly reported some alert marked in red but wasn;t able to understand what it was .

 

As of today my car is eating dust at the service center I cannot believe the way they handle these cars or even the more expensive ones like Superb/Laura . reckless attitude is not the word and the dealer is also known to swap parts with fake ones :(

 

 

Please advise what can I possibly do ?

just an update ,

 

I got my car back yesterday , Turned out it was an issue with engine wiring harness , skoda has temporarily swapped it with one of their demo cars and until the part arrives at the service center, somehow I am not convinced but the glow plug and dpf symbols don't appear anymore . I noticed breaking has become really hard and and I can hear it make vacuum sound on pressing beak ..  

It could be your DPF, which needs a regeneration. But why did you buy a diesel, for driving 2x2km a day? Thats not healthy for a DPF...